Carpe Diem Haiku Kai is the place to be if you like to write and share Japanese poetry forms like haiku and tanka. It’s a warmhearted family of haiku poets created by Chèvrefeuille, a Dutch haiku poet. Japanese poetry is the poetry of nature and it gives an impression of a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water. ++ ALL WORKS PUBLISHED ARE COPYRIGHTED AND THE RIGHTS BELONG TO THE AUTHORS ++ !!! Anonymous comments will be seen as SPAM !!!

Monday, October 12, 2015

Carpe Diem #837 St. Patrick's Day

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I think this episode will be a short one, because of lack of time and maybe because I think that the most of you know what St. Patrick's Day means. I didn't know that St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in Japan, because I know this holiday only from Ireland. So let us take a closer look at what St. Patrick's Day means and why it is celebrated in Japan.

Saint
Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick (Irish: Lá Fhéile Pádraig,
"the Day of the Festival of Patrick"), is a cultural and religious
celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (c.
AD 385–461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland.

Saint
Patrick's Day was made an official Christian feast day in the early 17th
century and is observed by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion (especially
the Church of Ireland), the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Lutheran Church. The
day commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, and
celebrates the heritage and culture of the Irish in general. Celebrations
generally involve public parades and festivals, céilithe, and the wearing of
green attire or shamrocks. Christians also attend church services and the
Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol are lifted for the day,
which has encouraged and propagated the holiday's tradition of alcohol
consumption.

Saint
Patrick's Day is a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland,
the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the British Overseas
Territory of Montserrat. It is also widely celebrated by the Irish diaspora
around the world, especially in Great Britain, Canada, the United States,
Argentina, Australia and New Zealand.

Patrick was
a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Much
of what is known about Saint Patrick comes from the Declaration, which was
allegedly written by Patrick himself. It is believed that he was born in Roman
Britain in the fourth century, into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father
was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest in the Christian church.
According to the Declaration, at the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish
raiders and taken as a slave to Gaelic Ireland. It says that he spent six years
there working as a shepherd and that during this time he "found God".
The Declaration says that God told Patrick to flee to the coast, where a ship
would be waiting to take him home. After making his way home, Patrick went on
to become a priest.

According
to tradition, Patrick returned to Ireland to convert the pagan Irish to
Christianity. The Declaration says that he spent many years evangelizing in the
northern half of Ireland and converted "thousands". Patrick's efforts
to convert, subjugate, and drive off the Pagans (specifically the Celts) were
eventually turned into an allegory in which he drove "snakes" out of
Ireland. (Ireland never had any snakes.)(Source: Wikipedia)

Irish Clover, it is said that St. Patrick used this to explain the Holy Trinity to the Pagans

Now we know a little bit more about St. Patrick. So let us take a look at how St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in Japan. According to several sources St. Patrick's Day was introduced to Japan very recently in 1992 since then it has become a celebration all over Japan.

Japan has a surprisingly large number of St. Patrick's Day events with
parades in several cities. The largest by far is the Tokyo St. Patrick's Day
Parade in Omotesando with 15,000 participants and 50,000 spectators. The
event features marching bands, cheerleaders and plenty of enthusiastic
supporters. It's celebrated on March 15th instead of March 17th as is the custom in other countries.

I hope you did like this episode and I hope it will inspire you to write/compose an all new haiku or tanka.!! I am (hopelessly) behind with commenting I hope to catch up a.s.a.p. !!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 15th at noon (CET). I will (try to) post our next episode, a new Haiku Writing Techniques episode, later on. For now ... have fun!

Basho (1644-1694) once said:

[...] “When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.” [...]

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IMPROMPTU VERSE

Sometimes a haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form comes in mind just in one eye-blink. Those poems I call Impromptu-verses. Here I will publish these Impromptu-verses. Today's Impromptu verse: (11)

fragile beautyclimbing against the fencemoonflower straightenswith her snow white blossomto the Summer moon

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Publishing Policy

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Carpe Diem is the place to be if you like to write and share haiku (or another Japanese poetry form like e.g. tanka). It's a family of haiku loving poets.Japanese poetry is known as the impression of a short moment, say a heartbeat or an eye-blink, in which nature plays an important role.It's free to participate in Carpe Diem. By participating in Carpe Diem, you agree with the use of your work in the exclusive e-book series of Carpe Diem.Of course your work will be credited as Carpe Diem always does. However all the texts and works at Carpe Diem are copyrighted and the rights belong to the authors.

March 20th 2016

Chèvrefeuille, your host

PS. Of course it is possible that you don't want to have your work published in our exclusive series of CDHK e-books. Please let me know that by sending an e-mail to our e-mail address carpediemhaikukai@gmail.com